Business Trivia
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100 free Business trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
40 free business trivia questions with answers. This business trivia quiz collects the facts that make company histories fun: the $35 Nike Swoosh, Amazon's first name, the misspelling behind Google, the waffle iron behind running shoes, Nintendo's playing-card origins, IKEA's acronym, Nokia's paper mill and Toyota's lucky brush strokes. It also visits Wall Street: the Buttonwood Agreement, the Dow's 1896 debut, Nasdaq's electronic first, Black Tuesday and the largest bankruptcy in US history. Along the way you get the world's first speculative bubble, the first joint-stock company, Standard Oil's break-up, Blockbuster passing on Netflix, Ponzi and Madoff, and Adam Smith. Easy questions suit office quiz nights and MBA icebreakers; the harder ones on dates and dollar figures will test finance nerds. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How much was graphic design student Carolyn Davidson paid in 1971 for creating the Nike Swoosh?
$35
In 1983 Phil Knight gave her a diamond Swoosh ring and 500 shares of stock, since split into 32,000.
Q 02Under what name did Jeff Bezos originally found Amazon in July 1994?
Cadabra
He renamed it that November to reflect his ambitions; by 2026 it was the world's largest company by revenue.
Q 03The name Google is a misspelling of which mathematical term?
Googol
It denotes 1 followed by 100 zeros; the founders' first office was Susan Wojcicki's garage.
Q 04Nike was founded in 1964 by Phil Knight and his coach Bill Bowerman under what name?
Blue Ribbon Sports
They started out selling Onitsuka Tiger shoes from Knight's car at track meets; the company is named for the Greek goddess of victory.
Q 05Which kitchen appliance did Bill Bowerman use in 1971 to create a new grippy sole for running shoes?
A waffle iron
The resulting 1972 'Moon Shoe' got its name because the tread looked like astronauts' footprints.
Q 06Which third Apple co-founder sold his stake back for $800 within two weeks of the company's 1976 founding?
Ronald Wayne
Apple became the first US public company worth $1 trillion in 2018.
Q 07In which year did Apple become the first publicly traded US company valued at over $1 trillion?
2018
It passed $2 trillion in August 2020 and $4 trillion by late 2025.
Q 08Which company did Fusajiro Yamauchi found in Kyoto in 1889 to make hanafuda playing cards?
Nintendo
Even the founder's descendants do not know what the name really means.
Q 09IKEA is an acronym of founder Ingvar Kamprad's initials plus what?
His family farm and home village
Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd; he was 17 when he founded it as a mail-order business in 1943.
Q 10The name Lego derives from a Danish phrase meaning what?
Play well
Ole Kirk Christiansen began making wooden toys in Billund in 1932; the company now moulds about 36 billion bricks a year.
Q 11Nokia was originally established in 1865 as what kind of business?
A pulp mill
Fredrik Idestam built it on the Tammerkoski rapids near Tampere; rubber and cables came later.
Q 12Samsung began in 1938 as a small trading company dealing in what?
Dried fish, groceries and noodles
Lee Byung-chul started with forty employees before diversifying into textiles, insurance and electronics.
Q 13The name Toyota was chosen partly because it takes how many brush strokes to write?
Eight
Eight is a lucky number; the founding family had made automatic looms before cars.
Q 21Which stock market opened in 1971 as the world's first fully electronic exchange?
Nasdaq
Quotes appeared on cathode-ray terminals, but trades were still done by telephone at first.
Q 22'Black Tuesday', the worst day of the 1929 Wall Street crash, fell on which date?
October 29
Some 16.4 million shares changed hands; Black Thursday five days earlier had set the previous record of 12.9 million.
Q 23Which accounting firm was dissolved after the 2001 Enron scandal?
Arthur Andersen
Kenneth Lay had formed Enron in 1985 by merging Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth.
Q 14Starbucks opened in 1971 at which Seattle landmark, initially selling coffee beans rather than drinks?
Pike Place Market
Howard Schultz bought the chain from the founders in 1987 and turned it into an espresso bar empire.
Q 15Microsoft was founded in 1975 to sell BASIC interpreters for which early microcomputer?
The Altair 8800
Paul Allen suggested the name 'Micro-Soft', short for microcomputer software; the demo happened in Albuquerque.
Q 16Before Warren Buffett took control in 1965, Berkshire Hathaway was what kind of business?
A textile manufacturer
Its class A shares hit $700,000 each in 2024 because the board refuses to split the stock.
Q 17In which city was Warren Buffett born in 1930, giving him his famous nickname?
Omaha
He founded the Giving Pledge in 2010 with Bill and Melinda Gates, asking billionaires to give away at least half their wealth.
Q 18Which company introduced the first moving assembly line for cars in 1913 at its Highland Park factory?
Ford
Henry Ford was 39 when he founded the company in 1903 with $28,000 from twelve investors, including the Dodge brothers.
Q 19When the Dow Jones Industrial Average debuted on May 26, 1896, how many stocks did it track?
12
Its starting value was 40.94; today it tracks 30 companies.
Q 20The New York Stock Exchange traces its origin to the 1792 agreement signed by 24 brokers under what?
A buttonwood tree
The Buttonwood Agreement set a floor commission; the exchange's opening bell now rings at 9:30 am.
Q 24Which firm made the largest bankruptcy filing in US history on September 15, 2008?
Lehman Brothers
The 'Lehman Shock' was the climax of the subprime mortgage crisis.
Q 25What is generally considered the first recorded speculative bubble in history?
Tulip mania
At its 1637 peak, some bulbs sold for more than ten times a skilled artisan's annual income; Semper Augustus was the priciest.
Q 26Which trading firm, established in 1602, is often called the first multinational?
The Dutch East India Company
Any Dutch citizen could buy its shares, and the secondary market became the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
Q 27In which year did the Supreme Court break up Rockefeller's Standard Oil?
1911
Rockefeller had founded the original Ohio company in 1870.
Q 28George Eastman chose the name Kodak in 1888 partly because of his fondness for which letter?
K
He called it 'a strong, incisive sort of letter'; he and his mother devised the word with an anagram set.
Q 29In 2000, Blockbuster turned down the chance to buy Netflix for how much?
$50 million
Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010; a single franchised store survives in Bend, Oregon.
Q 30Netflix was founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph as what kind of service?
DVD rental by mail
By 2005 it was shipping a million DVDs a day; by 2026 it had 325 million paid streaming members.